They lay together. The evening had descended and they had made love twice more. He had never felt like this with anyone. Completely captivated and yet, free. Susan lay in light sleep and he nodded in and out.
Dreams came and went, of soft places and warm lands, one image working its way into all. A hillock or mound, barren crags in the highlands, he was sure it was the highlands, heather blowing in a strong wind and a solitary figure, a man, strong, wizened, robed in black with white hair blowing to the side, his face smiling and long fingers beckoning. Just as words were about to leave his mouth, Susan sat up, bolt upright, straight from sleep to full awareness.
"No...." she said strongly.
James joined her, looking for a danger he felt but could not see. "What is it?"
She turned to him, a smile soft on her lips. "Oh... nothing, James, a dream..."
She stood, her body lit in the warmth of the evening, soft curves and shadows filling the gaps.
James expected it now, expected that horrible awkwardness that he had always felt after sex, as the parties endeavored to explain away their carnal lust in rational terms, with promises of ringing tomorrow, having dinner, calling around again.
Susan pulled her dress over her and James dressed as she did.
He stood and tucked himself in. Susan turned, now it would happen. She moved to him and kissed his lips with a gentleness that weakened him. "I think you are the best lover I have ever had, James. I have never felt like this." She completed with a smile.
James smiled and kissed her back. Unlike James' fears, the talk was of dinner. Perhaps to her flat first if he didn't mind, and he didn't. They drove there together and Susan parked her little Citroen 2V. They entered the flat and James was impressed with the tasteful but messy presentation of the place. He immediately felt at home.
After a shower, a shower they shared and a shower that saw the water run cold on two bodies lost in a primordial coupling that was loud and strong, they went to the Indian restaurant around the corner and had Lamb curry, Nan and yogurt dip.
Over dinner they talked of things, just things. Susan close and near; touching him softly and laughing with him. Walking home to the flat they held hands and Susan spoke to James like she had known him for years, and he her.
Later, they worked on the scratching. He a book runner for her requests, text books looking for symbols, words, images and needing much concentration and effort. About 2am they decided to finish at that and without discussion or debate, they went to bed. Made love again and slept...
The hillock, and the man... traveled to them both.
Next morning, over breakfast, Susan in a wrap-round robe open to reveal her sensual body, and James in a towel that was laid across his lap, both finding their sexuality raised beyond anything they had experienced before, talked of things to do with the thing.
They discussed the dream. Now, 24 hours after they had met, they both felt they could tell each other anything. James felt he loved Susan with all his heart and was dumbfounded. OK, the sex was truly wonderful... truly... but it was more, their spirits, souls were bound in some way.
Susan had told him in her climax, that she loved him always... and later just smiled when she recalled the words. This was the strangest thing that had ever happened to either of them.
"What do you think it all is Sue?"
She smiled, "It is a Dolmen for sure, I think it is a point. These are units placed to catch and process the earth's power. Did you know they are known to have served as altars, as on the island of Guernsey, where they were used by the Druids in their religious rites. Dolmens are particularly numerous in Ireland and Wales and in the English counties of Devon and Cornwall; in northwest France, especially in Brittany; and in Spain. They are also found in northern Africa, in Syria, and in other countries ranging as far east as Japan." She said as she poured fresh tea into white china mugs. The legend, "...dig to discover... dirt..." on them.
"James, Japan, isn't that amazing?"
He nodded his affirmation.
"Points are always fours. They form a perfect square and in the middle is the top. James, they have been found hundreds of miles apart, and if worked from a map, their accuracy is to millimeters."
"What are points used... were used for Sue" he asked, amazed at the discussion.
"Before I answer that..." she said as she cuddled up to him "...I need to tell you a little about the Druids"
He nodded, saying that he had read a little of late and she said to stop her if she was stating the bleedin' obvious. He said he would and she continued.
"They were members of a professional class in their culture, the Celtic Nations of Western Europe and the British Isles, they were not an ethnic group; their culture, the Celtic culture, was." James nodded, he had know this even before this all began.
"Well, they filled the roles of judge, doctor, diviner, mage, mystic, and clerical scholar. In other words, they were the intelligentsia of their culture, the Iron-Age people of the Celtic Nations, although not an elite by any means."
"Mythologies describe Druids who were capable of many magical powers such as divination and prophesy, control of the weather, healing, levitation, and shape changing..." she pondered for a moment and added "...still, most cultures have room for magic, it is only something we have removed in this century."
"Their education was so rigorous that at the end of it they were virtually walking encyclopedias. The best word for them would seem to be "priests"..." once again she pondered "...I'm loath to use this term myself for two reasons: The Romans never used it, and because Druids didn't preach to congregations as priests do."
"You know they had a clientele, like a mystic, a shaman, or a lawyer would have. Caesar and his historians never referred to them as priests but this could be because their own priests were more mundane, teachers and judges, less emphasis on being seers or diviners, whereas the Druids appeared to have both legal and magical powers."
They talked on, Susan building James' knowledge, presenting the Druids in a light he had not understood before. Possibly the most amazing realization was that they were good. The bad press was part of the Roman propaganda machine. Susan explained why it was so. It was the Celts they stood to conquer and the Druids tended to be the people of influence in the various places of that empire. Give a dog a bad name and their influence would weaken.
They studied the scratching. More so Susan studied it and James ran errands and performed look-ups in the mountain of books on the table. They stopped for lunch and Susan said they would have to go and ask for some help; later.
Over lunch they held hands and talked and talked. James expected to be going back to the university but found himself traveling into the country in the sling seat of the 2V. Susan was an interesting driver and the 2V an interesting car to be driven in by an interesting driver.
It was going on dusk when the arrived at a little cottage on the outskirts of a small village about 40 miles from the city. A brass plaque announced "Annwyn" and if ever there was a place the postcards pictured, this was it.
Susan got out with a practiced ease that James had yet to master, the doors opening forward and the seats swaying as you moved. He finally disentangled himself from the Citroen to see Susan hugging another woman. An old woman that looked just like the woman who should own it.
"James, come on slow coach, come and meet Maerre." He did so and they were allowed to enter the postcard. Inside, the cottage was warm and inviting. A mix-match and everywhere something; a place of activity. Susan had introduced the lady at the gate and now, as they drank a sweet herbal tea that James actually liked, he learnt that Maerre was not a professor, or lecturer or any such thing. He learnt that Maerre was a Druid. Maerre was a Fianna.
"The Fianna were warriors and typically adolescents and young-adults" Susan explained to James "similar to the Hindu "Sadus" but more militant and limnal than religious in nature."
James looked at the old woman, standing 5'2" wringing wet and had difficulty holding a smile away, Susan continued with an excitement that James found captivating.
"Still, there is a mystical dimension to the Fianna, for many of them were accomplished poets and seers, and Fenian myth abounds with hunting trips that wind up in the Otherworld... the Annwyw. Perhaps it is easier to slip into magical space when one lives on the border of civilization and savagery."
Two days ago, any talk of magic would have left James smiling and wondering about the person telling the tale. Now, he just nodded, watched Susan as she spoke and accepted her words as he did the air he breathed.
"Of course, not all Fianna were fearsome warriors, James..." Maerre rejoined as she sat opposite them in a large wing-backed chair. "...in fact, a lot of the imagery surrounding the Druid myth is misinformation stemming from the Romans, their agenda was quite identifiable, to cause the Druids to appear less than acceptable to the then gentile society that was occupied Britain."
"In fact Boudicca was perhaps the most knowledgeable of Fianna, with much magic and power at her disposal, she was an intelligent woman who rallied and prepared a great army and planned her things well. She was effective and caused the Romans much concern. Yet today, she is seen as a dirty rude chieftain of some band of rabble. Goodness it could not have been further from the truth." Susan continued and finished with a resolve.
The discussion went on longer, as Maerre told James of the Druid world, explaining much as she did; none the least that the Druids existed and learnt and taught in the modern world. Her cottage was an example of the tangible aspects of it all.
During Maerre's discourse, Susan sat with James, her arms around his knees and her chin resting on her hands. He held his hand on her shoulder and had never felt such warmth as he felt now.
Maerre was a gentlewoman, wise and loving, of that he was sure. In his heightened state he could... taste it. Well taste was a strange sense to use, but... it would do. Like new dimensions had opened. Susan told Maerre of the story and produced the scratching like some ancient tapestry. Maerre made room on the table and laid it out flat. Starting to study the messages locked into the symbols and letters that heretheto were less than identifiable.
The ladies started to talk in a language that was English albeit spiced with marvelous sounding words that must have been Gaelic or the like.
"It is not a point Susan, I am sure of that. This is a Dolmen, no doubt. But it is not a tomb. I have never, and I mean never, seen the likes of this. It is written in riddles and the symbols are arrange in an array."
Maerre was hunched over the paper and paid strict attention. The minutes passed and the intensity of the study and talk between the ladies caught James spellbound, so much so, it was dark the next time he thought to look out the window.
The lights were burning and he sat there dumbfounded when he realized no one had moved since. Maerre must have been aware of his thoughts, she smiled at him. "...timers James, on the standard lamps, burglars you know..."
He smiled and laughed out loud. Susan did, well it was a well-formed giggle anyway.
"Susan, much of this is Zoomorphic" she was pointing to a number of the symbols, and James could see they were like knots intertwined with animals, but, no, not animals. For the first time, he could see they were people and then, the realization was that they were in erotic poses. The intricate work had been lost on his less than appreciative eye.
"I think I must see this thing" Maerre stood and offered to prepare dinner for them, which they agreed to.
Much more was discussed over dinner and James was amazed at how readily he was accepting all the talk of magic, great Druid achievements, enlightenment and the like.
At one time Maerre turned to James and Susan and asked them how long they had know each other. They both became quite introverted at this and mumbled two days, adding about 10 hours to the gross time together.
Maerre just nodded and smiled.
"Susan, it is to be my love. If this thing is what I think it is I can tell you both that you are doomed to be."
She just smiled and it was the smile of someone who may be able to understand the power of their, Christ, what was it that it was... relationship. No too soon for that... their predicament, nope, no way, not predicament... God James thought, their... magic was all he could think in light of the course and discourse this day had taken.
"Do you have an opinion Maerre?" Susan asked.
"Oh yes I do" she smiled "tell me more of the man in the dreams."
They did that, then Susan added a little about the woman. At this James sat up straight "Woman?" he had seen no woman. Susan spoke of the lady trying to get to the man, held away by something and trying to fight against it to reach him.
Maerre nodded and smiled. "Be warned sweet child..."
James never thought of Susan as a child but he now realised that her 30 to his pending 44 was a gap for sure. This had never entered his thoughts.
"...you two are doomed to be. Is it good?"
God, James was amazed to hear the lady ask the question and was about to say something when Susan smiled and rejoined.
"Maerre it is like James touches my heart. When he makes love to me I soar like nothing I have ever felt prior, I can't explain it, it is like flying and swimming and being caught and free all at the same time. His love centers on me and I am lost, I have never been so. Maerre I love him with all my heart."
James was just not used to such candor but he keened two things quickly. These women were very special and more than acquaintances and that he liked the way it sounded to have a Goddess of such wonderful things telling someone he was what she said.
Maerre smiled "...my angel, I am so glad for you..." turning to James and smiling that smile of a maiden aunt that had been given the care of a niece and was about to allow her to the care of her lover. "...James, you are a special man, you don't know it, but you are. Susan has power beyond her understanding and I have feared she may not realize it due to the lack of a suitable lover."
"Power?" James asked.
"Oh yes, Susan is capable of great things, she is my apprentice in such, but I suppose you may have realized some of this although I am sure that she would never have told you without my grace. She has it now."
Susan held James' hand tightly and he felt his emotions swell with such love it was not real... oh fuck it, it was real all right, everything else prior to Susan was not.
"She will be a great Fianna and you her chief... if you want to be."
Maerre smiled at James lovingly "Susan has described the "flight". When you make love, this is the taping of the power. It is documented in so many places, the Taoists make a religion of it, the Hindi talk of the Godhead, and so it goes. At all times the womb is the centre."
She took a mouth full of soup and continued.
"If you help her fly, you are the one James. I am amazed at the magic that has brought you together. It is wildly exciting to me. This thing is powerful and it serves a purpose. I will tell you both more when we have inspected it."
They ate on in silence but with a warmth that further held the maiden aunt/suitor relationship James and Maerre were forming. It was good.
Susan was radiant in the evening light. Maerre had lit candles and the only incandescent light was a small globe over the back door. The room swelled with their fellowship and Susan's eyes shown and sparkled in the ricochet of the candlelight.
As the meal came to an end Maerre turned to James. "Do you feel the same love Susan does, or is it just lust? Oh, and don't concern your self if it is lust now James, it will become love, I am just wondering the level of attainment at this early stage."
"Maerre, I love Susan like I have loved her forever" he stared at the lady, never taking his eyes of her "like I have always done" the words left his lips and he was not even aware of them.
"By the Gods you are two marvelous people. James, Susan..." both looked at this lady now as students would any revered scholar, James amazed at his preparedness to do so.
"...be aware that this is all beyond understanding for this world. It would defy description or explanation to any others, you are best to not bother. As to you both, you will be and are to be from now. James, I want to test you later, I believe I have found in you a sleeper. Susan would never have been attracted to you if not so. I need to keen its origin."
James agreed and over coffee they discussed more. James learnt of a little of the legends of the Celts and how the Druids worked and fitted into the scheme of things.
Maerre was a loving host and a loving person.
Later, she asked James to sit in the wing backed chair and in an exercise akin to hypnosis she regressed him to find out what ever it was she was concerned to find.
As she did, James felt himself floating and then lifting, initially the start caused him to break the hold she had as he felt himself falling back.
"Relax James, you will find you are flying of sorts."
This time he did and he soared with wings invisible to the eye. The same wonderful visions of his dreams and the same place he visited. The highland fog heavy on the heath, this time he felt at home. In the distance the man stood and lifted his arm in greeting. It was a greeting of friendship and knowing.
James replied with same but felt himself returning and next was back in the room.
"Goodness James, you are not even aware of anything about yourself are you?" Maerre smiled as she patted his hand. Susan was standing behind the old lady, a smile from ear to ear and at the same time a look of incredulous delight on her face.
"It is early days James, I will help you learn if you wish to. Suffice to say, the pair of you are doomed..." she smiled as she said this "...so I say, learn to love each other completely. James, please Susan, each orgasm releases power you can drink, and as to Susan, each time you bring her so, she soars and gets closer to the sun."
Maerre looked at them both, shrugged "...I spent my life looking for my chief James..." she smiled more, leaned forward and kissed his lips, not like a maiden aunt "...If it were that you were 30 years older..."
That broke the spell, Susan laughed and Maerre joined in. James was learning to be less dumbfounded by these two but was suitably so, he just smiled.
Maerre suggested that they should not stay with her that evening. With a wink to Susan her reason was that she needed her sleep and that the walls were paper thin.
But then went on to ask James whether it was possible for them to go to his home, to be as close to the thing as was possible. James agreed and had to admit to himself that he wanted Susan in his bed.
They left with the plan to meet with Maerre the next morning. At the door, Maerre stopped them both, kissed them and handed them both a red velvet pouch each.
"Here, take these, you will know when the time is right to use them."
Susan was driving the way Susan drove and James just sat and accepted this new world of vehicular transportation. James was sure that Susan had never been told that the makers of this little car did not build an accelerator that needed to be held to the floor to make the thing go forward
They arrived at his home. It was immaculately clean, cold and empty. He rang his wife who gave a perfunctory warning about any mess and was gone as quickly as the call had begun.
Susan stood behind James has he held the receiver at arms length the busy tone sounding. She put her arms around his chest.
He stood 6'3" and she 5'2" so the embrace was gentle and soft and she seemed to fit into his shape as if they were cast in some master forgers sand box.
Her hands linked and he felt her moving gently against him, sparking a warmth that ran through him like lava down the sides of Vesuvius. Yes Vesuvius is the one, they say it would travel at 200 mph and have a temperature of 2000f. That is what it felt like.
"I am so sorry James." She said and he knew she was.
"No, stuff it Sue" he had started to use the diminutive "stuff it absolutely".
He turned and she returned to her embrace, this time against his chest.
"I love you Sue." He said and he felt her sigh against him, her knees buckled and he felt her droop in his arms. She looked up, her eyes as gentle as silk against white bed sheets.
"Oh James I just have to hear you tell me that, it is wonderful. I can not understand how I feel for you but I need you to my very soul."
They made love and slept, arms and legs tangled. In the garden, a ray of moonlight, like it was focused from a torch, fell on the thing. The symbols had change further, the lid, now about five inches lifted, and given the unknown width, perhaps close to opening.
The crickets sang and in the distance a Loon sounded. They slept and dreamed.
The smoke was from a hut; it was behind a hillock. The black man was standing at the door, beckoning James. As James approached he seemed to get nowhere although he was sure the man was smiling. The smile of a friend for sure, James was sure this was no nightmare. No Steven King twist, no rabid dog about to pounce and after ripping the black man's throat out, running after and showing James that throat ripping was soft art compared to what he had in store for him.
No, this was a gentle place and James was sure it was good.
The morning promised to be a dull breezy day. They lay together in the bed, Susan spooning into James' side, her hand lazily across his chest, breasts pressing lightly against his ribs, her leg over his allowing his hip to set against her. A soft pressure that just underlined their sexual feelings for each other.
Their talk had covered the insatiable need for sex they were both feeling and they agreed it needed no reason. Their talk other times was wonderful, both extremely intelligent, James realizing now that his mind had just been sleeping for 20 years. Now, for the first time, he was with a person, a lady, a lover, who thought and made him do so.
Susan kissed his chest, brushing her lip over his him.
"James, do you know the story of Fand?"
James said no and Susan moved to be on her belly, her arms on his chest and her face on her hands looking at him. Doing so, her breasts pressed against his stomach and he could feel the tickle of her pubic hair against the top of his thigh, he loved how this princess made him feel.
"She was a faery queen, once married to Manannan Mac Lir. After he left her she was preyed upon by three Fomorian warriors in a battle for control of the Irish Sea. Her only hope in winning the battle was to send for Cu Chulainn who would only agree to come, if she would be his. She reluctantly agreed, although when she met him, they both fell deeply in love."
She smiled and continued.
"Manannan knew that the relationship between the human world and the faery world couldn't continue without eventually destroying the faeries. He blanked the memory of one from the other by drawing his magical mantle between them."
"Fand was a sea Goddess who lived both in the Otherworld and on the Isle of Man. Together with Liban, her sister, she was a twin Goddess of health and earthly pleasures."
Susan smiled. "Do you believe in faeries James?"
He smiled back.
She continued "Some scholars believe she was a native Manx deity who was absorbed in the Irish mythology. There was talk of the mantle being locked away from man and faery alike. Hidden in a box so none could take it and break its spell. The spell that keeps Fand and Cu Chulainn apart."
James moved to watch the eyes of his love, seeing the same wonderment he had gazed last night as the candles had played with them, as she had spoken of the magic and wonder of the world he was such a new comer to. Strange, he knew he accepted it completely.
"Maerre believes this Dolman holds the cloak, uuummm, the mantle. She believes that our dreams are of those Gods. That this is faery magic you have uncovered."
James smiled a smile that Susan had come to love, that look of, not skeptic but more so, OK, if it is, show me.
"Don't think faeries are small things at the bottom of the garden..." she smiled at the obvious pun "...everything is capricious about them, even their size. They seem to take what size or shape pleases them."
She smiled "Their chief occupations are feasting, fighting, and making love, and playing the most beautiful music. They have only industrious person among them, the leprechaun... the shoemaker."
Now she laughed "Perhaps they wear their shoes out with dancing. Near the village of Ballisodare there was a little woman who lived among them seven years. When she came home she had no toes... she had danced them off." She laughed.
"When they are gay they sing. Many a poor girl has heard them, and pined away and died, for love of that singing. Plenty of the old beautiful tunes of Ireland are only their music, caught up by eavesdroppers."
She moved, making warm feelings where she pressed "No wise peasant would hum "The Pretty Girl Milking the Cow" near a fairy rath, for they are jealous, and do not like to hear their songs on clumsy mortal lips. Carolan, the last of the Irish bards, slept on a rath, and ever after the fairy tunes ran in his head, and made him the great man he was."
"Maerre is convinced this is faery magic James. The symbolism of the writing, the seven rows of seven. She believes that we are, no, were effected by the thing, but thank God, it was meant to be that we are one." She moved again, both of them feeling the warmth of sexual need flowing through them "The reason for such shenanigans is to keep mortals employed in carnal pursuits and tire them out so their folly is not to interfere with the thing."
She looked down for a second. "I thank God I found you...." James kissed her and the spark was complete. The rest was as it would always be, forever. Love made and needed to be made, spirits soaring and lifting with each orgasm, each touch, each thrust. It was just as it had to be... for this Fianna and her man.